Viera Janárčeková, the E.T.A. Hoffmann Prize winner of the city of Bamberg, died on May 14 2023 at the age of 81 in Großbottwar (Ludwigsburg district).
Viera Janárceková studied music in Bratislava and Prague. Shortly after the suppression of the “Prague Spring” she emigrated to the then FRG. She lived for a long time near Kassel together with the writer Ulrich Holbein, first in Remsfeld, then in Homberg-Allmuthshausen. Since 1981 she was active as a freelance composer. She spent the last years of her life in Bamberg.
From initially traditionally oriented pieces, she gradually developed an experimental idiosyncratic style, along with appropriate writing styles. Commissioned works, prizes, radio broadcasts and publications testify to the growing interest in and recognition of Janárceková’s music.
Viera Janárceková’s works range from vocal and chamber music to large-scale orchestral pieces. “She understood experimentation as an indispensable part of her creative work, exploring new sounds and playing techniques. Again and again, her music was described as electrifying and magical,” Georg Pepl said in the HNA. She found her own musical path through listening. For new pieces, she always had various instruments handy at her desk to try out different sounds. Wolfgang Rihm wrote in a letter to Janárceková: “It is amazing: you succeed in bringing sounds and noises, which have been consumed in the field of reference of the ‘critical,’ the ‘refusing,’ etc., back into the sphere of the vital, in the best sense: the musical.” The CD “Dotyk” with some of your works has been published by the label Kairos.